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Over $200 for a lift ticket? I'm not a skiing on the cheap guy but that's outrageous.

But is it?

Maintaining a ski resort is very expensive, especially for large Western resorts that have considerable infrastructure and have to deal with avalanche mitigation. People constantly complain about crowds ... but also complain about costs. Aspen costs what it does because they consciously are limiting uphill capacity and limiting crowds to make the guest experience better for the people who are willing to pay up. Should Aspen lower its prices and become more crowded? Then there's Vail at $209/ticket. Despite that, Vail is one of the busiest resorts in the country that experiences incredible crowds on weekends, holidays, and powder days. Obviously there is demand for what they offer at that price point.

The interaction between multiresort passes and day ticket prices is interesting. Having a multiresort pass encourages a resort to hike up day ticket rates, which makes the multiresort pass more and more valuable. As someone who skis a lot, what's bad about this? Even if Vail charged half of what they do for walk up tickets, I would be getting a huge amount of value out of the Epic Pass if Vail was where I skied. High day ticket prices help soak the tourists, or people who have enough money that they don't care about costs, and enable people like me to ski a ton for a very fair price. Given shorter winters and a more variable climate as time goes on, multiresort and season passes enable resorts to mitigate risk.